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Failures of Voluntariness: The Single‐Party Case

Failures of Voluntariness: The Single‐Party Case

Chapter:

(p.143)
21 Failures of Voluntariness: The Single‐Party Case

Source:

The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law Volume 3: Harm to Self

Author(s):

Joel Feinberg

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

DOI:10.1093/0195059239.003.0005

Should the law permit autonomous persons to act on their own in ways that are harmful or unreasonably dangerous to themselves but not directly threatening to other persons? The most plausible liberal answer is boldly in the affirmative. Entirely self‐regarding and voluntary behavior is none of the criminal law's business. However, there are times when harmful or unreasonable risky behavior is a good deal less than voluntary, and the soft paternalist would justify interference with it. The concern of this chapter is the problem of determining voluntariness in single‐party cases.

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PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2019. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy).date: 25 May 2019